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Every forum has its echo chamber moments, this one included. It's just sort of the nature of online communities that they tend to develop overall opinions and attitudes over time, it happens. Some get worse about it than others, and White Wolf's is far from the worst offender in that regard, but the response during that preview didn't present a strong case for it not being full of people ready to shout down anyone criticizing it with all the usual suspects ("it's not for you, go play something else then, it's art and you just don't understand it, white-knighting," etc). Maybe that was just a spike, I don't know, but the times I've visited it before it seemed devoid of actual criticism like BryanChavez said...it was either people obsessing over pet peeves or people dancing around contentious issues without ever actually addressing them like a wary detente. That could just have been the Mage fans, though.
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Nov 28, 2013 16:53
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I think—or hope—that the Exalted forum is the way it is mostly as a reaction to how absolutely loving awful it was not that long ago. That's probably not it. 
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Nov 28, 2013 17:00
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Mikan posted:Keeping these things secret only hurts people looking to enter into the industry - RPG authors are gossipy, catty people, and anyone who's even kind of in the loop knows about this stuff. Nobody wants to be the one who goes public with these things but it leaves predatory publishers and awful people open to take advantage of new talent entering the industry, while the existing authors nod their heads and pretend to be shocked if it's ever revealed. If you're a freelancer who wrote a book or painted a cover or did some layout for Company X and are owed money by them, your only hope of getting paid is that they stay in business and generate revenue and send you a check, which they can't do if they're driven out of business because people starting publicly airing their dirty laundry and talking about their dire financial situation. So freelancers have an incentive to keep bad news hidden and their employers afloat so they can someday collect, and they don't take kindly to other freelancers blowing the whistle. The same is true about editors who hire freelancers - if there are multiple people up for an assignment, do you really want to give it to a guy who will start blogging doom and gloom about your company if his check is a day late? The real losers are newer/less plugged-in freelancers who do work for Company X and don't know that they haven't paid anyone in two years because of this blanket of silence. And there are some companies who understand this and put paying freelancers at the very bottom of the list because they know freelancers will put up with long delays, 'cause they have strong incentives not to call the company out in public.
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Nov 28, 2013 18:49
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That's not always the case though. Lots of times you go unpaid and see a company keep churning out product and post on social media, while your emails go unanswered. My pet peeve as a freelancer is when people hire you and then never follow up. When you eventually contact them, they go ''Oh you didn't do the work on time, the book is ready now so I don't need it anymore.'' Yeah, it's not my failing that you didn't care enough to ask for the work before going to print, rear end in a top hat. ravenkult fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Nov 28, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 18:55
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FMguru posted:The same is true about editors who hire freelancers - if there are multiple people up for an assignment, do you really want to give it to a guy who will start blogging doom and gloom about your company if his check is a day late? I don't think a hypothetical about some unreasonable Strawman Freelancer whining about a slightly delayed check really helps here, because that's not what the scenario is about at all.
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Nov 28, 2013 18:56
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Ettin posted:I remember talking about CthulhuTech on RPGnet back when people gave a poo poo about that and being told that I shouldn't criticise the people who made it because they're designers. One time I was told that I (and other people) had no right to criticize CthulhuTech because of freedom of speech. By someone who repeatedly said that he never read the books. 
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Nov 28, 2013 19:11
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That's not really a gamer thing so much as a general internet idiot thing.
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Nov 28, 2013 22:50
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I'm aware of that. It's just that Ettin's post resonated with one of my own experiences. And yeah, the whole "freedom of speech means immune from criticism or being banned from a forum!" as widespread thought on the Internet is really loving annoying.
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Nov 29, 2013 00:05
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Kai Tave posted:And to be honest, Bill Coffin apologized and that was classy of him, but I don't think he did it because his reputation suddenly tanked. No, I don't think he did it either, I think he did it for his own reasons. I think it was problematic that it he put it together as a personal attack on Siembieda, but with the caveat being that it's very hard to criticize Palladium without criticizing Siembieda in the first place. ravenkult posted:Because everyone is a huge loving nerd and they can't take criticism. At least in my experience, even the slightest comment will make And this is how assholes protect themselves. Why the hell would Bill's reputation be damaged, unless you are a terrible person yourself? (I don't mean you, Alien Rope Burn.) Or you see him as somebody who's going to blow his stack and turn to the internet over disagreements. I'm reminded of when I was quite young, a business owner visited our school for a talk about how they hired people. At one point he talked about not hiring people if they regularly miss work. One student asks "But what if they were sick?", and his answer was "Why would I want to hire sick people who miss work?" Is that fair? No. But to some people the reason isn't important.
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Nov 29, 2013 00:15
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I don't know if it's fair, but it's for sure dumb as poo poo. You'd have to be one petty motherfucker to hire people based on that.
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Nov 29, 2013 00:18
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I could probably name quite a few petty motherfuckers in the TG landscape, and I'm barely on the periphery of the games industry. It's hardly the rule but there's never a shortage of them. 
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Nov 29, 2013 00:22
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Alien Rope Burn posted:No, I don't think he did it either, I think he did it for his own reasons. I think it was problematic that it he put it together as a personal attack on Siembieda, but with the caveat being that it's very hard to criticize Palladium without criticizing Siembieda in the first place.
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Nov 29, 2013 01:17
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I can see people being a little wary. I mean, even in the Palladium, we don't necessarily have the whole picture. Though, granted we're just missing, like, a couple of the sky pieces, maybe the trees, but all the edge pieces in place. But in general, I think there's that worry that maybe there's more to the story, since it's hard for a company to respond to that sort of charge. Joe Bob talks about a hostile working environment, but maybe he's the one who made it hostile. The company can't really say anything without looking worse. So, other companies might be a little wary of Joe. Maybe he's entirely justified, maybe he's just a complainer who'll make them look bad if he doesn't get what he wants. But you're right that it creates an environment where people are unwilling to step forward when there's legitimate issues, and people who just want to help protect others from getting into a bad situation (like Coffin) having difficulty finding work later on. Reputation should be a bigger shield than it is. Knowing that Joe Bob worked for five years on various games with no issues should hold more weight than it does.
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Nov 29, 2013 01:59
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FMguru posted:If you're a freelancer who wrote a book or painted a cover or did some layout for Company X and are owed money by them, your only hope of getting paid is that they stay in business and generate revenue and send you a check, which they can't do if they're driven out of business This all sounds like companies hire people and ask them to do work, while not having on hand the money necessary to pay them for that work. That seems like a really shady business practice right there. I mean, I get that if you are a struggling publisher maybe you projected incomes that didn't show up and you thought you'd have the money and you wound up not having it, but if that is what is going on in your business you are undercapitalized, and that goes back to something Gau said in this thread a longass time ago: the biggest problem with small businesses that leads to their deaths is undercapitalization. I feel that it is unethical to promise money to someone in exchange for their work, when you know that you do not have the money you are promising and cannot be sure you will ever have that money. Depressingly common, and not just in the gaming industry, but still to my mind a fundamentally exploitative and unfair situation. Maybe if you were honest up front about the uncertainty? Like if you told your freelancer that you want them to do x, and you'll pay them y, but you don't have y and if business goes south you might never have y and if they're not OK with that then you understand.
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Nov 29, 2013 07:30
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Hopefully that's not quite that common in the industry, but then, there are a lot of people who get into it without any real business plan beyond "I like games. I'm gonna sell me some!" I've seen a few Kickstarters where it was clearly a case of, "Well, I'll definitely have the money for this later. No worries." before learning that, well, yes worries. Some have learned from their mistakes and are doing pretty well now. Others, not so much.
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Nov 29, 2013 08:44
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Leperflesh posted:This all sounds like companies hire people and ask them to do work, while not having on hand the money necessary to pay them for that work. That seems like a really shady business practice right there. And pretty much all small-game publishing freelancing is based on the "write and submit this now, we'll pay you after it sells and we have the money" model. If that money doesn't show up or there are unexpected expenses and delays or sales just aren't what you projected them to be, then the freelancer is mostly out of luck. Such is life in the shoestring hobby publishing market (especially given the above-mentioned very amateur approaches to business that a lot of new, small game companies have).
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Nov 29, 2013 16:53
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"Write this and give it to us and maybe we'll pay you one day if we're lucky" is an absolutely atrocious business model and I honestly can't muster a ton of sympathy for publishers who do that and then get bitched about by freelancers who get stiffed. It's one thing if sudden unforeseen circumstances beyond one's control mean that payment gets delayed, that sucks but that's life, but someone who can't pay out for work has no business soliciting it from others with vague promises of future money, no really, the check is going out next week. That there's a seemingly inexhaustible supply of freelancers willing to go "yeah, that sounds like a great deal" doesn't somehow make it any better a practice than people arguing that writers should only get paid one cent a word because they should be doing it for the love of the craft.
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Nov 29, 2013 17:00
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Christ, yes. As someone who's been a freelance writer (journalism, not RPGs) and got stiffed to the tune of almost a thousand pounds - I eventually got back less than a tenth of what I was owed about three years later, after the company went into liquidation - I'm very much of the view that anyone who uses the "We'll pay you after the book comes out, and if it's a success, and if the stars align, and we haven't already spent the money" business model deserves to be red-flagged. Not necessarily in a "These guys are crooks!" way, but definitely "Just letting you know, I'm still waiting to be paid for something I did for them six months ago." If someone still wants to write for them out of a passion for the subject, then that's their lookout, but at least they'd know what might happen down the line.
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Nov 29, 2013 17:31
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But now you're a 'Big-Deal' novelist though...
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Nov 29, 2013 17:55
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:But now you're a 'Big-Deal' novelist though...
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Nov 29, 2013 19:30
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As a new RPG publisher (Base Raiders) would it be crass to ask if anyone wanted to write new adventures for my game here? It will be paid. I've published a few books already and I've always been on time paying my artists. PM me with a link to your portfolio/writing credits and I can send you pay rates and details.
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Nov 29, 2013 21:48
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FMguru posted:And pretty much all small-game publishing freelancing is based on the "write and submit this now, we'll pay you after it sells and we have the money" model. If that money doesn't show up or there are unexpected expenses and delays or sales just aren't what you projected them to be, then the freelancer is mostly out of luck. Such is life in the shoestring hobby publishing market (especially given the above-mentioned very amateur approaches to business that a lot of new, small game companies have). There's a business model that actually supports this kind of work, though. What you do is you offer the writer (or artist or whatever) a percentage of revenues instead of (or partially instead of) a fee based on wordcount, hours worked, or a salary. If the artist isn't interested in sharing the risk of the publication with you, then they can decline such an offer up-front. But if you promise someone you're going to pay them for work, it is not OK to put the business risk you have undertaken on to them, without telling them first. Many businesses have risk, and small startup businesses have lots of risk. The expectation is that the business owners are the ones financially exposed to that risk (and it can be limited, via limited-liability corporations). The employees are exposed to the extent that they may be laid off, but should not be risking their earned wages without being told first. If I were writing a game or game supplement, and I wanted to hire an artist, another writer, an editor, or whatever, I would assume that I'd need to raise the full cost of their work ahead of time. That would be part of my budgeting for the product. If I can't come up with the money, then I can't make the product. Payndz posted:If someone still wants to write for them out of a passion for the subject, then that's their lookout, but at least they'd know what might happen down the line. Yeah, I think my point here is full disclosure more than "this must never happen." The assumption is that you have the money you've offered to pay me; if you don't have that money, you'd better warn me now, and make sure I have a full and complete understanding of the risks... not just an optimistic spiel about how promising the product is.
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Nov 30, 2013 08:11
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Leperflesh posted:There's a business model that actually supports this kind of work, though. What you do is you offer the writer (or artist or whatever) a percentage of revenues instead of (or partially instead of) a fee based on wordcount, hours worked, or a salary. If the artist isn't interested in sharing the risk of the publication with you, then they can decline such an offer up-front. No snip because phone but: as an observer to the industry of games, this post sums up a lot that needs to be understood, tg or not. Any cottage industry, really. Whether the money is guaranteed or not does not matter in and of itself. What matters is whether the contractor is properly informed of the situation.
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Nov 30, 2013 08:41
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A big part of the Palladium/Bill Coffin thing is that while it's all sort of common knowledge know, it was also "kind of" common knowledge even back before he posted it all. It wasn't hard to see just how big a role Kevin had in the business, how often it was clear books were partly/entirely rewritten by him, how often deadlines slipped, how crappy the layout and editing was, how freelancers tended to stop making books for Palladium quickly... all Bill did was spell it out explicitly and make people realize it was a lot worse than even they thought. It turned gossip into news and fact, and while I still say it's completely justified, it definitely hurt Palladium badly in the short term.
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Nov 30, 2013 10:01
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Captain Foo posted:No snip because phone but: as an observer to the industry of games, this post sums up a lot that needs to be understood, tg or not. Any cottage industry, really. Whether the money is guaranteed or not does not matter in and of itself. What matters is whether the contractor is properly informed of the situation. Sure, it's one thing if a publisher is perfectly up-front about things and a writer enters into an arrangement with them fully aware of the situation. Some people really do just want "exposure" or want to have a sourcebook with their name on it and are willing to do work for that with monetary compensation being a bonus (but as with most things you tend to get what you pay for). But I'm curious as to just how many publishers who operate under this model have made a habit of explicitly spelling it out in no uncertain terms as opposed to sugercoating it or downplaying the "we don't actually have money to pay you and it's a crapshoot whether you'll actually get paid anytime soon if ever" side of things.
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Nov 30, 2013 10:27
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Kai Tave posted:Some people really do just want "exposure" or want to have a sourcebook with their name on it and are willing to do work for that with monetary compensation being a bonus (but as with most things you tend to get what you pay for). No professional writer/artist is willing to work for exposure. Which means that if someone is, they're probably a poo poo writer.
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Nov 30, 2013 13:50
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"Professional" is a pretty hazy definition in the TRPG hobby, to be honest. It's not that writers and artists who'd meet the broader definition of the term don't exist within it, but a lot of content creators in the hobby do seem more willing to work for low (or on occasion no) pay rather than putting their foot down and demanding regular non-hobby market wages. Publishers wouldn't be able to get away with soliciting work on the cheap the way they do if people weren't willing to take them up on it, and not all of those people are random schlubs from DeviantArt. Enough tradgame creators have talked up the "there's no money in RPGs, you just have to love doing it" angle that it's become entrenched as a truism and fans will actively shout down people who suggest that, hey, maybe writers should get more than a penny a word, y'know?
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Nov 30, 2013 14:20
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Given the knock-on effects, you can probably make an argument that hiring writers for really low salaries is unethical even if the writers do come into it with their eyes open.
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Nov 30, 2013 17:08
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The TRPG customers don't seem to care about solid game design or good writing, so why try to sell it to them I guess? The whole thing is depressing to think about.
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Nov 30, 2013 18:41
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JDCorley posted:The TRPG customers don't seem to care about solid game design or good writing, so why try to sell it to them I guess? The whole thing is depressing to think about. So I guess we just have to all make an effort to be vocal and push for this stuff if we want it to happen.
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Nov 30, 2013 18:52
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Fred Hicks weighed in on this issue as a publisher http://www.deadlyfredly.com/2013/11/pay-on-publication-needs-to-die-a-rant/ which was a response to this G+ post https://plus.google.com/+DavidHillJr/posts/ch4okgS8TzR
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Nov 30, 2013 20:04
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It's embarrassing that "pay people when they complete their work" is a controversial statement. It's basic adult courtesy. You'd go to jail if you tried to delay payment for an oven and tables until after your restaurant is open and making money.
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Nov 30, 2013 20:34
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While "maybe we'll pay you, I guess" is unconscionable, I don't think RPGs as an industry can sustain actual fair pay. Not before ameliorating the larger problem of stagnant wages and rising costs for the whole economy.
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Nov 30, 2013 22:20
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I think the reason whistleblowing is considered taboo is because just about every publisher is doing something shady. People don't get into this industry because they're master businessmen, so most of them are struggling in some way. Hell even the big companies that are run by master businessmen *Cough*Upper Deck*Cough* get into shady practices.
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Nov 30, 2013 23:00
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Plague of Hats posted:While "maybe we'll pay you, I guess" is unconscionable, I don't think RPGs as an industry can sustain actual fair pay. Not before ameliorating the larger problem of stagnant wages and rising costs for the whole economy. The old line is if you can't pay your employees properly, you shouldn't have them. This kind of talk makes me think the TG industry isn't something that really should exist.
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Nov 30, 2013 23:47
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moths posted:You'd go to jail if you tried to delay payment for an oven and tables until after your restaurant is open and making money. This is called a bank loan.
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Nov 30, 2013 23:48
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Is there any reason (other than banks being harder to rip off than freelancers) that publishers can't get legit loans to pay writers and artists?
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Nov 30, 2013 23:53
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It's because most RPGs make four (or three, or two...) digit sales that barely pay the cost of printing.
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Nov 30, 2013 23:57
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I responded to David Hill's post, and he and his partner told me who pays on time and who doesn't. Let me know if I killed their careers.
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Dec 1, 2013 00:35
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The thing about "well if I tell everyone that these companies are stiffing me then that'll make them defensive and even less likely to want to pay me" is that once you hit a certain point of not-being-paid what do you have to lose exactly? Oh no, this publisher hasn't paid me for work I did three years ago, I'd better not say anything bad about them or they might...not pay me.
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Dec 1, 2013 01:51
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